Sex. Cinema. Rules.

So I'm having a drink with a friend who I haven't seen for a couple of months. After about 20 minutes covering work, where we live, how having no money is depressing, and what a cock the bloke by the bar wearing wristbands is, she tells me she's going on a date the next night with someone from a dating website.

"Cool, where you gonna go? We live in London, dates can get pretty creative".

"Yeah.........that's true. But The Great Gatsby is on and he really wants to see it, plus I love Leo and he knows a cool place to eat nearby" 

WHOAH THERE A FUCKING MINUTE.

This is the problem with society. Ok, apart from class divides, crime, poverty, etc, this is the problem with society. Cinema is not for dates. Let me attempt to tell you why:

Wood Green. Dreadful.

1) I've been in a cinema whilst an obvious 'date' has been going on behind me. I remember it well. I went to see 'Blue Valentine' in Wood Green (don't judge). They talked through the ads (fine, we all do), then chuntered on about their mutual friend well into the trailers (pushing it), but then had the AUDACITY to talk like giggling little shits a good 5 minutes into the picture. Sorry folks, but just because there are credits on the screen doesn't mean the film hasn't started. This isn't fucking EastEnders. 

Disgusting behaviour

2) There's one thing arguably worse than the chatters. There are those (my mate Phil is one) who just see the cinema as a kind of dark, short stay hotel, a place where it's ok to touch the inside of your dates thigh whilst watching 'Avatar'. Obviously the Na'avi were a bigger turn on than I'd realised. This has only happened to me once, at a midnight showing of Public Enemies, with a guy and a girl so obviously not there for the film it was untrue. It was possibly more uncomfortable because I had taken a seat on the back row, blocking their first choice. So they resorted to Row H, which was great as my view of the left half of the screen, Johnny Depp, and Marion Cotillard were obscured for about 20 minutes by this girl's bobbing head.

3) Because the first two points might seem a bit bitter, let me redress the balance. A few years ago I was going out with a girl and we decided to go and watch Iron Man. Being a bit of a romantic, I went the extra mile and paid an additional £2.50 so we could watch it somewhere with a slightly bigger screen. And with less pikeys. So we are in there about 15 minutes, she'd had a drink (twelve drinks), and whispers 'come on let's just go back to mine'. I realise now that maybe I should have gone, maybe she was The One. But...............

I'VE PAID £28 FOR THESE TICKETS SO YOU WILL SIT THERE AND YOU WILL FUCKING LOVE IRON MAN UNTIL I SAY YOU CAN STOP.

Iron Man. Not a sex film.

But even though these points are slightly stupid, the fact remains that cinema is a different social medium compared to, for example, being at a gig, or a football match. Cinema often relies on detail, a momentary glance, a background movement, or a telling mise-en-scene. Film regularly demands attention to be fully appreciated. Cinema as a social experience is, at it's best, sublime. But it's also something that can be equally enjoyed in isolation, and lose nothing for it. The idea of a cinema 'date' is flawed until you are (minimum) 4 months in.

By this point, you should know enough about each other that, if you have another question or something you want to talk about, you should be comfortable enough to shut the fuck up with each other for two hours. Conversely, I often look around cinemas and see the couples so far gone who have given on up creative dates, for whom cinema is a chance to say 'yeah we went out for the night together' without actually having to look at each other for an extended period of time.

In the end my friend didn't really enjoy the date. Apparently he turned up twenty minutes into the film and then tried ordering for her at Masala Zone afterwards. 

I love being right.

Sport/Life/Etc

Sport is, with some admittedly colossal differences, life. Rules exist, and are invariably broken, despair often outweighs triumph, and you generally need to be a Sky subscriber to enjoy either. It's because of this alignment that sport is perpetually such a fertile subject matter for film. The drama, the heroes, the villains, the glory, elements equally suited to describing 'The Dark Knight Rises' or the latest Champions League Final.

He's not exactly Nadal.

        Unfortunately, a lot of films purporting to be about sport (and for the purpose of this blog I'm not counting the likes of Happy Gilmore, Dodgeball, or anything with Will Ferrell clowning as a film rooted in sport) are...............well, shit. Anyone who has sat through Paul Bettany and Kirsten Dunst in 'Wimbledon' will know the film has about as much to do with sport as Sepp Blatter's advice to female footballers to 'wear shorter skirts'.



Perhaps the lack of truly great sports films has to do with the compromise needed. To elicit real drama, inevitably dramatic license with the sport in question is taken. Simultaneously, the show a sport as it truly is will frequently mean losing something cinematic in the process.
       But sometimes, just sometimes, like your favourite club who lose eight on the bounce then win 3-0 away at the league leaders to 'keep you believing', cinema gets it right. Spectacularly right. One of the most recent example of this is Clint Eastwood's 'Million Dollar Baby'.
       A-Listers such as Will Smith and Denzel Washington both tried their hands at boxing flicks, but neither got close to delivering the kind of punch/knockout blow/other cliche that 'MDB' does. And when the easiest, most dramatically viable option in a sports film is usually to have the protagonist finally overcoming struggle and achieving victory before the credits roll, 'MDB' destroys it's own premise, confounds expectations, and emerges as something pretty special.

      In the same vein, the criminally underwatched 'Friday Night Lights' takes a small Texan high school football team and creates the best American Football film ever made. It was so good that NBC picked up the story and converted it to a series still smashing viewing figures on US TV. As much about a town's obsession with their team and the responsibility placed on young men as it is about football, it captures machismo and heartbreak in a way Adam Sandler could only dream of.

Even the poster is offensive.

    With the subject matter being a US sport, maybe UK audiences don't quite connect with the likes of 'Friday Night Lights' and 'Moneyball' as much as their American counterparts, but, as with all great sports films, the drama and spectacle are far more important than the sport in question.
But for every 'Any Given Sunday' there has to be a 'Mr Baseball'. If you haven't seen this, please don't. It's basically Tom Selleck as a superstar ball player who goes off to Japan and spends 90 minutes being horrifically racist to Japanese people whilst twiddling his 'tache and then finally deciding 'oh actually Japanese people are ok' and then tries to bang one.
           In the UK we've been pretty starved of decent sports films over the years. 'Fever Pitch' and 'Match Point' may pass the time, but then again, so does sleeping. 'When Saturday Comes' had Sean Bean in it. That's literally all I remember about the film so I'm doubting it was brilliant. 'Bend It Like Beckham' passed the time, but then so did 'Fever Pitch'. 'The Damned United' did show that we have the capacity to produce a powerful, authentic sports biopic, but was very much an exception as opposed to a rule
   So, for great cinematic sporting fare, we have to look to the States. Boxing and fight sports feature heavily, and whilst the first 'Rocky' was actually pretty damn good, the likes of 'The Fighter', 'The Wrestler' and particularly 'Warrior' blow it out of the water.
Gritty to the point of watching with gravel in your eyes, the template for this type of film is now set for years to come. But it's 'Raging Bull' that still sets the bar for the genre, and maybe sports films on the whole. Brutal violence (in and out of the ring), one of the world's best actors delivering one of cinema's most memorable performances, and a mesmeric tale of riches to rags, it hasn't been bettered since.
    But not many films got as close as 2010's 'Senna'. It has everything. Drama, obsession, danger, rivalry, heartbreak, and, ultimately, sickening tragedy. It's a real life story that defines sport better than any script. This was a film so good that I nearly came to blows with two different people to have the cheek to say they wouldn't watch it because they 'didn't like documentaries' and 'thought Formula 1 was crap'. I haven't spoken to them since. The best sports films don't rely on an inherent love for baseball, basketball, or American Football. They rely only on your capacity to relate, to feel something. And that's the thing about sports films. As with certain parts of life, you don't really need to understand it to enjoy it.

   

2011, and how film went back to the future.

Even in Dalston,

these are not acceptable

As happens every year, the December of 2010 boldly delivered it's prophecies of how the film world would take shape in the following twelve months. In amongst the usual press guff concerning Next Big Things and the continued domination of the franchise (2011 has seen more sequels than ever before), one prediction unexpectedly fell well short of it's heralded mark. The rise and imminent domination of 3D.



I get it, you're blue.



When i was enduring Avatar's bloated narrative a couple of years ago, I was seemingly safe in the knowledge of at least one thing, that the hideously retro 3D glasses I was wearing were a sign of things to come, that this magnificence was the FUTURE, and that paying an extra fiver at the flicks should be viewed as a privilege. A non 2D privilege.

Well, I'm happy to report that 2011 has proved that 3D, whilst evidently and correctly, is here to stay, it hasn't actually taken over the world, and, if anything, this year has seen a backlash, a bizarrely retrospective swipe at the future delivered by the very film-makers who are supposed to take us there. Because, whilst 2011 featured the usual barrage of effects laden fare, the theme of the year has been one that screams not of futuristic desolation, but 1970's claustrophobia and paranoia.

Still can't believe your sister's
 the rough one from EastEnders



Take a couple of the year's most high profile and successful films for starters. Tomas Alfredson's Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy is an obvious signpost, but none the less important for it. A story and a style that evoked great 70's thrillers like The Parallax View, with a visual panache that relied as much on stillness as movement, a rare example of a film that expected much of it's audience, and pandered to none.
If TTSS was the critic's darling, the Steven Soderbergh's Contagion was as close to B-movie blockbuster as Tinseltown allows. A star studded cast and multi million dollar budget were evidently in place, but this was a picture that shared it's DNA with the likes of The Andromeda Strain and early 70's dread, however hard it's contemporary licks suggest otherwise.

That hadn't bargained for the
 student exchange trip to Tottenham

To see film-makers like Alfredson and Soderbergh spin classic stories into pieces so relevant was a joy to behold, but this year's trend of nostalgia is probably best highlighted by the very wunderkind widely thought of as the next pioneer of his craft. JJ Abrams' Super 8 clearly borrows (and repays) a generous pinch of Spielbergian magic dust, but emerges as a joy, and proves that you can occasionally please all of the people, all of the time. Albeit with an 80's heritage and stamp, the conspiracy theories and paranoia screamed of the 70's and was a heartening reminder that when effects compliment a story rather than dominate it, they become all the more impressive.

This isn't to say that 2011 hasn't had its share of retrospective shoddiness. The much vaunted X-Men: First Class suffered in its pre-dated setting and felt un-necessary, whereas seeing the excellent Joel Edgerton pop up in a mildly redundant prequel of John Carpenter's masterful The Thing was a mis-step all round. There was also the brilliantly nuanced (sic) Arthur remake starring Russell Brand, which was roughly as good as every other Russell Brand film.

Not Human. Nice coat though.

But, in spite of these failings, 2011 has done a bloody good job of getting paranoia and an overbearing society back into the mutliplex. Perhaps it's the world around us that has laid the foundations for the public mistrust gracing the silver screen, the feeling we are being watched and lied to, and the recurring theme of a world in trouble. But whatever it is, it's welcome. Jesus, 2011 even achieved the almost unachievable, by adding a watchable, clever, addition to the Planet of The Apes cannon, a feat that proved beyond Johnny Depp's de facto other half, Tim Burton.

Rehearsals went,
in all honesty, too far.

Whilst it might be labouring a point to suggest that 2011 has been a generally outstanding year, it's true that certain examples point to a variety and ambition that can only lead to high hopes for 2012. Brit film had another major fillip, as Ben Wheatley's Kill List succeeded where Nicolas Cage's remake failed, by out Wicker Man-ing The Wicker Man, in another tale that played on conspiracy and paranoia. But whilst films such as this will remain on the very outskirts of the mainstream, it was the willingness of the big flicks to stick to genre that was refreshing.

Early promotional efforts were poor.

Jon Favreau's Cowboys & Aliens was, bar the title, not so much of a mish-mash, but a straightforward, classic tale that owes more to the Western than it does to the technology powered millions on the screen. Likewise, the recent, powerful The Ides of March is a stripped back piece of cinema, relying on good old-fashioned story and performance, a film that could have as easily been made 40 years ago, and relying on qualities that won't ever appear dated.

With only a matter of days left before the Hollywood juggernaut steams into 2012, the final few weeks have been punctuated by the appearance and anticipation of films the year should be remembered for. The cloying, foreboding (and, admittedly unseen by me) air hanging over Take Shelter have wowed critic and moviegoer alike, but it's Michel Hanavicius' The Artist that perhaps best showcases 2011 as the year that time forgot.

A black and white offering concerning 1920's cinema? Tough sell. Why not just go the whole way and make it virtually silent?! Oh, you did. And what rose from these unlikeliest of beginnings was the film many now regard as the best of the year, primed for a (quiet) assault on next year's Oscars.
2011 may not have been cinema's finest year, but it was certainly one of it's most unexpected. And I didn't don those stupid glasses once.

Family Misfortunes



Too hot to be related o me



Everyone's had the 'Who Would Play You In A Film Of Your Life?' chat at some point, if only for a few seconds. And, once you get past the fact that you look nothing like Pitt or Kunis, or any other photogenic human, the answers can be pretty revealing. Not because it shows who we like or respect, but because it shows, to a degree, how we view ourselves. But what if we took that one stage further? If there's a film of my life (piss off, there might be) then I wouldn't be (completely) alone, who plays the rest of the clan? Is it important to know? No. Have I run of out ideas for threads? Possibly.



And that's why you're not my dad



First up, mother. My first thoughts were along the lines of Pfeiffer, but then it would get all Oedipal and cease being tasteful. Ditto Marisa Tomei, maybe just old enough, but I'm not sure I want friends saying my mum is hot, even if it's fictional.

At the other end of the spectrum, the Helen Mirren factor screams at me, but she's possibly a wee bit old. But I need that air of gravitas, someone who delivers authority and coolness simultaneously. It comes down to two. Annett Bening v Meryl Streep, with the former winning out on the basis that my mates wouldn't want to nail her.



The father figure, then. Hmmm, I'd like Alec Baldwin, but he's insane and more of a junkie uncle. Dustin Hoffman is cool, but maybe too feminine and eccentric to gain my full imaginary boyhood respect. I did consider Gene Hackman, but he seems slimy and I'd always be worried he'd crack on to my auntie (Joan Cusack), so he's out. A close second is Tom Selleck, but the hirsuteness of the man borderline terrifies me, so I'm just left with Richard Jenkins, which is nice. Plus I think he'll get on with mum.

Willow. Like the tree.

He's my brother now

Next up: Brother. Important one this, I can't afford to be much cooler than me or my narrative will suffer, so options become sharply limited. Not too good looking, nor one step away from a dark cave. So the honour (yes, it's an honour) goes to Casey Affleck as my lucky brother, combining complete anonymity and socipathic tendencies like it's not even a 'thing'.

Of course, he and we need a sister. A little sister. And no-one likes their little sister. So I'm gonna make it Willow Smith, just to mess with expectation. Plus, it shows we are progressive. To finish off the ensemble, I need to enlist a pair of grandparents, the kind of old folk who will, at once, supply you with booze and petty cash whilst retaining their own teeth and bowel movements.



By cuddles, I mean sex.



Step forward.......Imelda Staunton, who mainly makes the family on the back of her Vera Drake gig.Not particularly uplifting I know, but I have a feeling my cousin (Dakota Fanning) might need her for that very reason sooner or later.

Last, and pretty much least, I need a grandfather. An off the rails, bad influence, worse role model grandfather. Michael Caine came close but is too sane, Richard Jenkins would be good but fuck, he's my dad. So it's left to Donald Sutherland, on the basis that he has facial hair on tap and Keifer may visit every other weekend.

I think my family is less a montage of how I view myself and more of a list of people I could think of. But it would be still be a good family Christmas, especially if Auntie Monica Bellucci turns up for 'cuddles'.



2011: Thank you

“Life moves pretty fast.  If you don’t stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it”.

Ignore the hair, he speak the troot'

It’s not often a right minded adult would heed the advice of a 15 year old truant, but Ferris Bueller didn’t get many sentiments wrong, and this is no different. It’s easy to become disillusioned by a band, a director, a film franchise, but now and again something happens that reaffirms why you love it in the first place.

2011 has had more than it’s share of these moments, whether it be Ben Wheatley confounding all expectation with his ‘Kill List’, 80’s sensibilities returning in J.J.Abrams’ ‘Super 8’ (surely Bueller would approve), or Duncan Jones emerging as the next big thing with *shock horror* an actually clever action sci-fi flick (Source Code).  Bearing in mind it’s only late September, it’s already turning into a vintage year on both sides of the pond.

Subtlety? I fuck subtlety!

What makes this as surprising as it is welcome,  is it’s sheer unexpectedness. This is a year, on the surface, dominated by the immense power of the machine, the Hollywood that shelves the original in favour of filling it’s trolley with the remake/franchise/sequel, or sometimes all three at once (hello ‘Fast 5’). In addition, there’s been no backlash to inspire such a year, no mini cinematic revolution, and no discernable indie movement responsible for any visible change of direction.

At first glance it’s a year populated by the ‘Thors’, ‘Hangover II’s, and the ‘Harry Potter’s of the world. But underneath this blanket of behemoths lies something for more interesting.  Exhibit A: ‘Limitless’: A seemingly standard case of ‘man of the moment’ (Bradley Cooper) starring with ‘older man with waning gravitas’ (Robert De Niro) for ‘super hero tale grounded in reality’ (miracle pill). First thoughts? Oh fuck. The reality was different. A clever, lean thriller which slightly betrays the marketing campaign that preceded it.

Don Cheadle. Yep................

Then there’s the kind of film impacting on 2011 that’s so refreshing. I haven’t even seen ‘Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy’ as yet. But a non-showy, talky, mysterious, low action character piece (FROM ENGLAND!) becoming the most talked about and hyped movie of the year? Next we’ll be talking about Don Cheadle in a 5 star Brit flick comedy set in Ireland. Oh,  wait!!!!!! Of course, we’ll always be peppered with the usual  Transformers  sequel, the inevitable ‘final’ Final Destination, and another 2+ hours of life waste from the Pirates of The Caribbean clan.

The Richard Keys impression went down a storm

But in a year so laden with treasures, this makes the dross somehow more palatable, even perversely more enjoyable, as we know it’s a distracting aperitif as opposed to an indigestible main course. ‘Troll Hunter’, ‘Warrior’, ‘Hugo Cabret’, ‘Drive’, ‘A Separation’. And these are pictures I haven’t even seen yet.  And how ‘nice’ (for want of a better word) is it for this list to be so varied? So different and distinctive?

So often contemporary movies can leave you with déjà vu, the easy option of accurately classifying ‘this’ film as a cross between ‘that’ and ‘the other’. But 2011 has thrown up ‘Kill List’ (Wicker Man comparisons are obvious but not entirely correct), and promises B-Movie premise for A-List cast of the year in Soderbergh’s ‘Contagion’, which could turn out to be, well, who knows?

The Rum Diary: Might be good. Will definitely be odd.

Johnny Depp will shortly be back into his trippy ‘Fear & Loathing....’ slippers for ‘The Rum Diary’, a Bruce Robinson directed adaptation of a Hunter S. Thompson novel. Yes please. While if that doesn’t tickle your fancy, there's always Fincher’s reworking of 'The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo’, which has the potential to be so brilliant that it makes my brain bleed. 

Oscar Baiting. A Necessary Evil

Michael Bay: Fuck yeah

Hyperbole, like the 5000 metre pacemaker who fades away once fatigue, reality and all it's disappointments kick in, follows all major films around. Michael Bay's pictures always open amidst a torrent of generally negative opinion, yet rack up box office numbers akin to a jammed calculator. Conversely, the next Mike Leigh movie will probably start life as a critical darling before taking just enough at the box office to fund the expenses of the tea boy.



Curvy girls. Indeed.



This hype is all part of the ride, it leads us to films we may not always be inclined to go and watch, and for this I'm eternally grateful. And it takes an eternal optimist (or deluded fool) not to take all pieces of praise and criticsm and treat them both with a healthy dose of scepticism.

But around this time of year, the media frenzy briefly (very briefly) departs from highlighting the 'Thrills' (Marie Claire), 'Rip Roaring Comedy' (Cosmopolitan) and 'Pant Browning Action' (The Sun) of summer blockbuster tosh to concentrate on renting our minds as well as our wallets. They target the Oscars.

I was looking forward, and still am, to seeing Gary Oldman deliver the 'performance of a lifetime' in Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy', I really am.



But why the fuck is Heat magazine telling me I need to see it because it's a 'rip-roaring tension ride'? Last time I checked, Heat photgraphed Alexa Chung jogging on Hampstead Heath and reported Ashley Cole pining for Cheryl (not Baker). Well, fuck off Heat. Stick to what you know. I don't go telling Steven Hawking that he needs to upgrade his telescope.

German film. About the Stasi. Not a comedy.

Anyway, I digress. Is this Oscar-baiting press coverage really healthy, or even necessary? Well, maybe. Films such as 'Winters Bone' and 'The Lives Of Others' are just 2 examples of films I wouldn't have been aware of had they not been backed to the hilt by studios concerned, hopefully, as much with their artistic merit as their income.



But it can seem that the film industry is obnoxiously out of step with some of it's peers. People probably do get excited by the Brits/Grammy's, but probably not 4 months before they occur. Equally, I'm sure Premier League footballers would all love to win a 'player of the year' nod, but I doubt it takes up a quarter of the season campaigning, and the results tend to be forgotten as quickly as an episode of Hollyoaks.

Of course, we all love getting accolades from our counterparts, those who do the same job as us and assume we put the same amount of effort in as they do. It's human nature to wallow in self-congratulation at times. But for a quarter of the year I would seem slightly foolish lobbying the board members of my company to recognise the outstanding report I handed in eight months earlier.

If you don't have one, you're shit.

But for some reason, although every soundbite pre-ceremony would beg to differ, it matters. No one has ever accepted the Best Actor Oscar with a shrug of the shoulders and a "aw sweet, I'm well happy at that". And why should that be the case? I, for one, love scoping out the Oscar nominees across numerous categories, knowing that with them brings the chance to cast my eye over a movie that may otherwise have slipped by un-noticed. Who cares if they're picking up an award for a film they actually finished working on eighteen months ago? It's all part of the show, a show that, at it's best, can awaken even the hardiest of hearts from it's slumber.



The Weinsteins had finally spotted the hidden camera



Of course it's contrived, and of course the more money Miramax shove behind their campaign for the next piece of Paltrow fluff, the more chance it has of landing on the voting laps of the academy. But this would be missing the point. Hollywood can at times seem a bloated, egotistical and vapid machine that delivers only one the most basic levels of art. But at Oscar time, at the time the money machine can be at it's most crass, is also the time that we're reminded how good it can feel to be served up something we didn't ask for, but in hindsight couldn't do without.

Riots. Cinema. Etc.

Whilst taking a bit of a risk, I’m going to attempt to write about something serious this time. Most risky of all, here follows an attempt to boil down a generation old debate into a few hundred words and a couple of Googled jpegs. So...........whilst discussing the recent riots in the capital this morning, and the media influence at the heart of it, I heard the following:

“Kids want I-Pods these days coz’ they’re told they need them, and music and films just back up this view without addressing consequence”.

Anarchy, in a nifty hat.

My first reaction was along the lines of “wait a minute you fucking idiot....” but then I thought about it for a minute (a few seconds). What if it’s too easy to rule out how much sway film (for the purpose of this rambling) can have? What if the notion of personal responsibility is compromised and undermined by a non-stop barrage of role models and characters doing exactly what they shouldn’t?

I’ve heard various stories over the years of the impact 1971’s ‘A Clockwork Orange’ had at the time, a film which mesmerised and terrified in equal measure and, as is usually the case, was really only appreciated when history got a hold of it. Some of the themes of Kubrick’s picture remain highly relevant, perhaps uncomfortably so. The public fear of being victims of apparently random crime, the threat of violence for the sake of violence.  These are crimes which prey on the mind of many a citizen 40 years later. The extraordinary becoming horrifically ordinary.

Ron Weasley

Irresponsible film-making?

But I wasn’t around to gauge that in ’71, so the first real recollection of film being partly blamed for society’s woes  for me came in 1993, with the case of murdered toddler Jamie Bulger.  The perpertrators of the crime were themselves children, and whatever other, more important details of the case, one thing sticks in my mind. The constant reference to the film ‘Child’s Play’, horror films and video nasties which had ‘a’ part to play in the horrible event.

The issue of censorship once again loomed large. Why were children allowed to watch such films? Where were the parents? But most of all, why were these films allowed to be made/watched/thought of at all? In reality, there is no perfect answer.

Don't you wanna be him

But there are a few truths.  Firstly, no film-maker is dumb enough (I hope) to ever enter a project with the intention to incite anything other than debate or restrained argument.  Did the writer/director of ‘Child’s Play’ (i forget/can’t be bothered to find his/her/it’s  name) intend to provoke violence or events mirroring their own work? Of course not.

But here’s the real debate. I’ve seen countless films such as ‘Goodfellas’, ‘Kidulthood’, ‘Romper Stomper’,  ‘City of God’, ‘Scarface’ and a thousand more which show, at times in graphic detail, the dire personal consequences that such violence, such materialism, such lack of respect for all people and all things, can lead to.

Keeping us safe and guarding  us from...stuff.

Then there’s the more subtle, satirical slant of movies such as ‘Taxi Driver’ and ‘Bowling for Columbine’, citing disaffected youth as a by-product of circumstance and society. But here’s the thing. Most, and I use that word loosely, of the thugs, and I use that word strongly, don’t understand the subtext. Or maybe more worryingly, they don’t care.

The most overt films, which graphically show the dire consequence of materialism and ‘take take’ of society, don’t resonate. Tony Montana gets his comeuppance. So what? They remember the drugs, the one liners, the beds draped with dollar bills, the champagne,  the chainsaw, the whole excess of it all. Do they care that De Palma balanced this with tragedy and disaster? Do they bollocks. 

Disaffected youth.

In more recent times, and probably more applicable to what we’ve recently seen on the streets of London, are films like Noel Clarke’s ‘Adulthood’. So Clarke makes sure his protagonist doesn’t end up a hero, doesn’t get the girl, doesn’t have, well, anything. Does it matter? Nope. It’s the faux gangster lifestyle that's initially dressed up as attractive, the reliance on only things that can be bought, stolen, or fought for, including people.  Here, and for all films lost on those who can’t even see the lines let alone read between them, moralising and attempting to show balance is redundant.

If we live in a world the ‘disaffected’ (in place of a few harsher labels) simply take without conscience, why should we be surprised if they simultaneously feed on a films' glamour and extremity without a care for the underlying truths? And these are just the obvious examples, the cases where a character so brazenly pays a price for a misspent lifesyle.

If the most blatant messages are missed, then what hope do the nuanced, intricately woven meanings and subtexts making their way into the psyche of an individual not capable of interpreting them correctly? None.  Absolutely none.

French unrest. In black & white. Must be serious.

But who does a film maker create for? The biggest audience?  The lowest common denominator? Themselves? At times, maybe all three. I heard it on a number of occasions that ‘Child’s Play’ was the ‘trigger’ which prompted Bulger’s killers to act. Perhaps this is true. But if they hadn’t have watched it, let’s not pretend they wouldn’t have found a replacement trigger pretty fast.

Asking whether advertising, TV, music, education, etc is responsible for recent events is a question for all, and one to which their probably won’t be any definitive answers, or perhaps even answers at all. But for film, as with any art, the answer is simple. No matter what subtexts or hidden meaning a movie conceals, any positive notions are in the eyes and ears of the beholder.  And when a movie purports to be responsible in it’s entirety, there will always be those ignorant enough to view extremes as a call to action.